Butterfly
by amorae
Summary: How come butterflies are always beautiful, even though they must do so many things, or they die? Has there ever been a butterfly that wasn't quite as beautiful as it looked? Rated to be safe.


My first story of the new year. Yayness?

Okay, so I'm sorry about this temporary hatius I've been on. I got Photoshop CS2 (for those who don't know, I'm a graphic's artist) for Christmas. For those who have Photoshop, you know it's notorious for conflicting with other systems. Well, Photoshop decided to be all conflicty with MSN Word. So if I want to write, I have to wait thirty minutes for Word to pop up. Normally, by then, I've lost all inspiration or I've written half the damn thing in a Wordpad document and I do something stupid, like exit out of it before transferring it to the Word Doc.

Anyway, this is really random. It's in a writing style **totally** different than mine, I know. For those who have read _Echo _and _Psyche in a Dress_ will recognize this style. Why? Because I think the style is somewhat intruiging and I wanted to try it. I don't think I did bad, but I don't think I did absaloutely beautifully, either.

_For those who are up-to-date with my CDF and Twilight fanfictions, I'm working on those. I have a Twilight fanfic called Funeral currently in the making, and a series--yes, a series!--for CDF._

_I also have another Danny Phantom series in progress. I have the first chapter written, and in my Document's section, but I'm writing the entire story before I let it up, so I don't have to fear abandonment (-cough-Breakdown-cough)._

Well, enjoy!

* * *

The wind was like sugar, in its taste and in its texture, as it pressed against his body angrily. Briefly he wondered if the wind had a grudge against him. He turned his face away from the blows and looked at the girl in front of him, her beauty stunning, just as he always found it.

Her small, fragile, petite body was held in an exasperated stance. Her amethyst eyes were just as beautiful as they always were, like small gems pressed into the crevices of her face. "Do you have to do that to yourself?"

He pulled his sleeves down past his wrists. "What are you talking about?" he muttered, shivering against the sugary wind. Her eyes became small slits, the gems having been cut down to the smallest fraction they could be and still be whole. He looked away from her unbearable beauty, unable to stare at her for so long and not feel insignificant.

She gestured angrily at him. "You know what I'm talking about," she answered, coldly, her voice hardly warmer than the snow that littered the ground. Her heavy coat was wrapped around herself, hiding her stomach, although she wasn't wearing the tank top she normally wore when it was not snowing. He wondered, vaguely, why they were outside. Had they gotten out of school early? Was it a snow day?

He had so much trouble remembering such things.

He shook his head. "I don't know what you're talking about," he argued, his voice as weak as it had been. Comparing himself to a butterfly, he felt as if his wings had slowly been ripped away from him, shred by shred, and he had to watch as each beautiful bit of wings fluttered away before his very eyes. He blanched slightly, from cold or from his ghastly simile, he couldn't tell.

Her hands darted out from beneath the bulk of the jacket and gripped his bony shoulders. "Stop pretending you don't know," she begged. He wanted to tell her about his problem, he truly did, but he didn't want to scare her away…she had avoided him for so long…or was it he who was avoiding her? "I know you know, and I want to help you, believe me, I do!"

Taking a deep breath, he forced his hands upwards and pulled her hands off his shoulders. He gripped her hands in his own hands, entwining their fingers carefully. She looked shocked, which made him think that it was possible it was he who had been avoiding her, worse than a butterfly avoids anything that can rip their beauty away from them.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he whispered.

Tears stung her eyes. "Show me your arms, then, if you don't know what's wrong with yourself."

"No."

"Why not?" Her lip quivered.

"Because," he muttered, his eyes darting away. "I don't want to."

Forcibly, with strength he did not know someone as fragile as her could own, she grabbed his arms and lifted the sleeves up, crying out in astonishment at what she saw.

Intricate lines criss crossed up and down the pale skin upon his arms. She could not tell if there was some sort of pattern to the tangle of slashes, or if they were random. Were they a replica of his wings before they were ripped away or if they were simply marks to keep track of the many pains he had been through?

"Oh," she gasped softly, looking into his eyes. His eyes were hollow, blank, swirling depths of sky-blue. Emotionless. Depthless. She stared into them before turning away, shuddering slightly, perturbed by the blind fury, anger, pain, depression, and sadness that reflected in them, even though there were no traces of the emotions in soulless depths.

He looked away again. "I don't know what you're talking about," he mumbled, stepping away from her and ripping his arms away from her. She let go swiftly, staring at him with angst-ridden eyes.

"Please…let me help you," she whispered, but made no attempts to call him back.

"No," he whispered back, equally as quietly, before disappearing into the ground, going backwards in his state of birth.

He was alone in his bedroom, silent. The world had seemed to stop spinning, giving way to the moment.

His breath was fogging his face, despite the fact that there was nothing to fog up. His breathing caused his body to shudder visibly as he sat on the bed, his fingers clenching the sides of the bed tightly, as if there were no escape.

His mind was an unrelenting circle, going over and over in a path that it had already run, deepening the path. His shoulders shook as he tried to control the sobs.

Why was he suddenly so weak, suddenly so feeble? It made no sense; he could hardly defeat any of the bullies and enemies alike. He began punching his mattress, taking his anger out on it. Why was he so weak? Why was he unable to fight? He couldn't find the answers.

His eyes flicked to the box where he kept his tool for escape.

No, he would not result to that.

The butterfly did not self mutilate himself; the butterfly beat its wings and looked beautiful, hiding the fact that it could not find what it was looking for. Hiding the fact that it was not as beautiful as the illusion it gave off, afraid the illusion would shatter into tiny shards and it would be lost forever.

But, the butterfly, in this case, often found that no matter how hard he tried, he could not find the shards of his old illusion. Like his wings, they had slowly disintegrated, along with any other inner beauty he had once had. What had once been a quest to help the world was now a quest to save _himself _from the damnination that he knew gripped him, tighter than an iron fist.

He got up, gingerly, lifting his sleeves up in a greedy fashion as he edged towards the box. An inner voice, what was left of his marvelous deeds, screamed at him to retread and never think of opening the box again; but even though the voice screamed, he knew that he would not listen, would not be _able _to listen.

The razor, so small and simple, sat inside the box, concealed with paperclips. He choked back a sob, not wanting to look at the disgusting beauty of the steel yet wanting it to tear into his skin and let his green and red blood mingle with the white linen towels. He wanted the razor to become smothered with his own blood, yet he wanted to throw the razor away from him and watch as the scars faded away into oblivion, nothing more than memory of a time when he was in his lowest of lows.

He staggered to the bathroom down the hallway, his sister walking out of her room. She looked at him, wondering why he was carrying a paperclip box to the bathroom, and came towards him. She put her arm on him, tenderly, in a way that she had not done since he was a young boy. "Are you okay?" she asked, softly, her voice velvet against his broken heart.

Not capable of looking into her eyes, he looked away. "I'm fine," he whispered. His grip on the paperclip box tightened. "Can I please go to the bathroom?"

She pursed her lips before stepping away, watching like a worried and wounded parent as he closed the door behind him, almost secretively. She wondered if it would be a smart move to talk to her parents about his odd behavior, but decided against it.

In the bathroom, behind the locked doors, he watched and marveled at the many cuts on his wrists. Was it possible that he had only started this crazy obsession six months before, the first time he began to feel more and more like his opposite self and less and less like his true self? It seemed so strange that he would need to cut himself so many times in just half of a year. But there was the proof, right in front of him, set in blood.

His fingers trembled as he ran the blade against his skin once more, across a cut he had made before. He watched in awe as the blood slowly seeped away from his body, the color not red, but not green.

In his mind, he believed his wings were coming back as his treacherous blood slowly leaked away. They folded back into life, each beautiful and blossoming pattern just as breathtaking as before.

However, in the _back_ of his mind, somewhere beyond his rational thoughts, he knew, he was dying.

His wings began to come back. In fact, his wings _were_ back, flexing behind him carefully, the muscles coming back from their long rest, their long time having been shredded to pieces. They were sore, unbearably so, but he knew they would not prohibit him from flying. Flying away from the pain; flying away from the anger.

He watched as the butterfly began to beat its wings, lifting itself into the air gingerly, not daring to rise higher than it knew it would be able to maintain safely. He felt the wind press against his face, the wind once more sugar in his mouth.

He flew away as his head hit the tiles with a resounding crack.

He was gone.


End file.
